Welcome to the Equipping You in Grace podcast, hosted by Dave Jenkins. The Equipping You in Grace podcast is a podcast about helping Christians develop a biblical worldview in a conversational tone about issues inside and outside the church. Now, for today's episode, let's join our host, Dave Jenkins. Welcome back to the Equipping You in Grace podcast. My name is Dave and I'm the host for this podcast. And today I have Marcia with me. Marcia, welcome to the Equipping You in Grace podcast. Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for having me on your program. Yeah, it's wonderful to be able to connect with you. Any friend of our mutual friend, Doreen, is a friend of mine for sure. Yeah. Right. Well, can you please tell us a little bit about your life, ministry, and some of the current ministry projects that you're working on, please? Yes, certainly. Thanks. Yeah, I had a long time, I was in the New Age, a good 20 years involved in just many aspects of the New Age initially. I was interested in talking to the dead, so I was into that for a while. I was into going to psychics, and later I got into, you know, I took a numerology course, I took a palm reading course, I had tarot cards and I was also involved or had a very strong interest in Eastern religions starting back in college. And so I also explored those areas and actually ended up with a Tibetan Buddhist group and then went into Zen Buddhist groups and started doing a lot of reading. in both areas but I kind of switched from Tibetan Buddhism to Zen Buddhism at the actually very different and I was reading a lot of stuff in Zen Buddhism and at the same time My interest in astrology, which actually went way back to high school, had never gone away. And so I took some astrology courses. I became a professional licensed astrologer in Atlanta, Georgia. I was active in the Astrological Society and also part of the group that formulated and gave an exam, which you had to pass in order to purchase a business license. and practice legally within the city limits of Atlanta, Georgia. So I was involved in all of that. And I really had no desire to leave it. I felt that I was on a spiritual path and that I was advancing, you know, in knowledge and in my spiritual journey. And so that's really what the new age is about. It's about you feeling you're on the spiritual journey and you're becoming more enlightened and more aware of the spiritual meaning of everything. So the Lord intervened, and I'm not gonna go into that, because that would take a good 20 minutes to really say what happened. But the Lord intervened and took me out of that when I trusted Christ. And after that, people started asking me to share my story. And then sometimes they would ask me to talk about the new age. And this went on for several years, sort of like a part-time thing. until finally different things happened that led me to going into full-time ministry. So I'm actually in, I've been in full-time ministry since 1998, so it's 23 years, and my mission agency is Fellowship International Mission. in allentown pennsylvania but i live in northern virginia uh so i basically i operate as a missionary i have supporting churches and you know supporting partner individuals um and that and that's how i do my ministry um so it is a full-time ministry so my my main goals are educating Christians on the New Age and the occult so that they can recognize it and know how to respond to it, and also reaching out to people in the New Age and the occult. So those are like the two main purposes or the two missions of my ministry. And, you know, it's kept me very, very busy, I must say. Never a dull moment. Yeah, I've seen you all over the place before, you know, shoulders. I think you're a Justin Briebly. Yeah, it was unbelievable recently. Yes, that was that was quite the experience. I bet I bet that was different, different from, you know, most like interviews and podcasts that I do. It's very different. You know, when we're done, you'll have to tell me about that. OK, I'd love to hear about that. Okay, well, can you tell us about this book Richard roar and the enneagram secret that you wrote with dawn and your friends don't our friends dawn and joy and why you guys wrote it and how it's being received guys for those watching you can you can see the book here. Yeah, Don and Joy Vino and myself, Marsha Montenegro. Yeah, this book came about after I had been warning on the Enneagram on Facebook starting in 2014. I stepped up my warnings in 2016 when The Road Back to You came out from InterVarsity Press by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile. It made sort of a splash. There was a lot of publicity about it. They did book tours. They did interviews. And then I was very alarmed because IVP is normally viewed as an evangelical Christian publisher. Now, I already knew, of course, about the Enneagram and I knew that Richard Ward had written a book way back like in 1991. I knew that the Enneagram was in the Progressive Church, which is actually why I wrote my first article was in 2011. And it's on my website. It's still there. It's called the Enneagram GPS Gnostic Path to the Self. So this was an area I had already been dealing with when the road back to you came out. And so I stepped up my Facebook posts on it. And of course, following year, the sacred enneagram came out from Zondervan, another perceived evangelical publisher. and it was written by Chris Horitz, who, it just so happens, was mentored by Richard Rohr, and Suzanne Stabile was also mentored by Richard Rohr. So those two factors, to me, made the situation more serious. I thought these are two Richard Rohr disciples who have written these books, and these books are now being viewed as evangelical in some way, which they aren't at all. But they were, you know, they were getting popular. And by 2018, it was really gaining ground. I was beginning to get more feedback from people who were encountering it. It still was not a huge thing, but it really became a huge thing by 2019. And by then, IVP and other publishers had done more books. By the end of 2019, there was a lot of books. Now, Don Vino and his wife, Joy, have been running Midwest Christian Outreach for quite a while, I think over 25 years. And I have known them for a number of years. I think I met them in the late 1990s. And then after that, I had a lot of interactions with them. Don used to do youth, kind of youth apologetic boot camp things. And he would go around with different people to different churches for the teens. And I was often one of the speakers. And so Don and I shared a lot of common interests in ministry areas. And he was also disturbed by this Enneagram business, and he saw how it was increasing. And just, and it seemed like doing a book was the best way to get the word out there about it. Because I mean, obviously Facebook posts are not enough. And articles on my website, of course I added articles on my website, but I mean, you know, I'm not, I'm not a famous person. So it's only gonna have a limited, you know, reach. And Don felt let's do a book. and really get the word out there. And so that was that was more or less how it came about. Now, when he first told me, I was like, oh, no, no, I don't have time to write a book. I was like, no, no. But, you know, as he pointed out to me, you've already been writing on this for years. You know, you already know a lot of stuff. It's not like you're starting at ground zero. I was like, yeah, that's true. So that's the book came about and was was released in March. 2020. And then we fortunately had people who interviewed us about it. And so the word kind of gradually got out. And we wanted people to get the actual facts on the Enneagram because I'll tell you, Dave, what was one of one of the most disturbing things, not was not just that the Enneagram was being promoted, but that it was being promoted with a lot of falsehoods. such as it's ancient, or it has Christian origins with the desert fathers, or with this monk named of Agrius Ponticus from the fourth century. And some tried to tie it into another guy named Ramon Lull from like the 12th century. in Spain. And none of these people, of course, had anything to do, the Enneagram didn't exist at the time. And so we were not just getting the word out, we were combating these falsehoods that were becoming entrenched because they were in all of the books. And they were also on videos. So there were a lot of videos coming out and especially after the pandemic began and people were online more. There were lots of videos on the Enneagram and people were saying all of these things. repeating all of these falsehoods. So people who, even people who didn't read the books were getting this information. Pastors were buying it. They were buying into it. So they were promoting the books in their churches. It got to the point where pastors would have their whole pastoral team read a book on the Enneagram or somehow get a course in it, and then all decide their numbers, Enneagram numbers, and then, you know, they would decide their parts in the team of pastors according to that. I mean, it really started becoming a tool within the church to use within the church. And I should probably say, just in case there are people listening who don't know what it is, the enneagram is a nine-pointed diagram. It's a geometric figure. And each of the nine points is a number, which supposedly represents a type. And this type is your, now this is not accurate, but this is the way it's presented in the church, but it's your personality. And sometimes they present it as this shows your sin pattern. So you're supposedly learn what your sin pattern is, and then you learn through the Enneagram what strengthens you, what weakens you. I mean, it really becomes this tool for self-analysis. When in actuality, the true purpose of the Enneagram is to find what's called the true self. And the true self is a self that is kind of pure, that's always been there, always connected with God. And the types are actually the false personality or the false self that you have built up to hide the true self. And so you've kind of deceived yourself with this personality, and you're supposed to work through that false self and discover the true self. Now, that's the actual teaching of it. That's the way Richard Rohr teaches it. Actually, that's what Suzanne Stabile and Karan believe. And the thing is, people were reading their book, and they were not really reading it correctly. They were just taking it on this kind of surface level. In fact, I have the road back to you and it doesn't even read like a Christian book to me and that was alarming to me that why is this like one of the most popular books in the church when I just read the first chapter and I could see it was it's not does not have a Christian worldview at all. I even did a Facebook post called, you know, the red flags in chapter one of the back to you. And then there's even more red flags after that. So I it bothered me that people couldn't even see that. And they took this as a Christian book. And they still do. There's still people out there who are dedicated to this. And even when they get the information that's in our book, however, they get it, whether they read the book, or just hear it, or see one of my articles, or whatever, they somehow are able to explain it away to themselves. They rationalize it so that they can make it something good, you know, they'll say things like God can take evil and make it good or God can redeem anything. And they're really using principles that are not biblically based to do this. So we've dealt with those arguments as well. That's an ongoing thing that I still work on. I still work on answer. I just did one recently. Can you compare the Enneagram to meat offered to idols? Because that's another defense that's given, that it's like meat offered to idols. So I did a whole post on showing why that's not a valid So this just goes on and on. I mean, it's become this sort of explosive, gigantic issue, and it has spread so far and wide, and in some cases so deeply. that, you know, it's kind of like me and Don and others who are trying to expose it are there with little shovels, digging in this hard ground, you know, like trying to dig away the false stuff and show people the truth. Because the Enneagram is a spiritual tool and it has a spiritual dimension. It's not just a fun personality test that people are taking too seriously. It is actually a spiritual tool. And because of that, I believe that it's being used by the enemy. It's being used to replace God's word and to replace the Holy Spirit. And I mean, I've actually witnessed that. So, you know, this, this, it's quite serious. It's a serious issue. Yeah. Yeah. Anything that, I mean, the Holy Spirit wants to plan us in the truth of God's word, not apart from God's word. Right. And then to ground us in Jesus. So, I mean, what you're touching on there is, I hope Christians are really paying attention to that. Because what you just said is, A, it promotes a dualistic worldview, which is totally opposite of the Christian worldview. And it opposes the work of the Spirit. So you would have to stifle the Holy Spirit as a Christian, which that's not a good thing. Yeah. No, it's not. And I think people are, I think it's, you know, I don't think people realize that's happening. I know Christians that are engaging in this. And so what would you say to those Christians that are listening and watching? They're wondering, okay, should I even do this anymore? What would you say to them? Yeah, I think that's... Yeah, I would say, no, you're using something, first of all, that has no validity in the field of psychology. It's not recognized as a valid tool. And actually, it has failed what's called the psychometric test, which is a test you can apply to tools that are supposedly about the personality. It fails that one of the reasons is that the types, the nine types overlap too closely. And in order for something like that to work, there has to be very strong distinctions such that there's not this kind of very casual overlap. That's one of the things about it that makes it invalid. So you could actually identify with several types and several of the types overlap. But aside from the fact that it's not valid, it is a tool that comes straight out of occult and New Age teachings. It was developed through people who had these very esoteric occult worldviews and who did the two main people responsible for the Enneagram, Oscar Echazo and Claudio Naranjo, both did spirit contact and were very open about it because in their view, this is a good thing. You know, they didn't see this as a bad thing. They weren't Christians. Oscar Echaza was an occult teacher. Now he taught the Enneagram as, he taught it really more like what it is, which is that each type was, he called an ego fixation. And this ego fixation is something that you conditioned yourself to believe about who you are, but it's really a false construct of who you are. And so he taught you, you have to realize that, and then you work your way through this false construct to discover the essence, the pure essence. And the word essence is actually used in a lot of the New Age Enneagram books, because that's what they believe, that you have to get to this pure essence. Richard Rohr will call it the true self and other terms. And so he teaches pretty much the same thing with his own spin on it. And one of the problems, another problem that's come from the Enneagram promotion in the church is that it has led a lot of people to recommend Richard Rohr. So I've actually heard Enneagram teachers at churches say, you should get Richard Rohr's book on this, you know, because his book is kind of like the main book, you know, it was the first one. It's called the Enneagram, A Christian Perspective. But here's the problem, Richard Rohr can't give a Christian perspective. because he does not hold to the essentials of the faith. A lot of people don't realize that because he is a Roman Catholic friar in the Franciscan order, so they assume he has a Catholic Christian doctrine. They just assume it. However, his views are not even in line with the Catholic Church because his view of distinction between Jesus and Christ. His view that the first incarnation of Christ is creation. So we're all in Christ because we're all part of creation. We've never been separated from God and what we need is not salvation, but awakening. He doesn't believe in that Jesus died for sins, because there's no need for that. He's a perennialist, which means that he believes all religions share the same core truth. They look different on the outside, and they're practiced differently, but if you really dig, you will find that they all have this core truth, which you need to discover through mystical contemplative practices. And if you are a perennialist, you automatically cannot be a Christian because the two worldviews are at odds. They conflict because a perennialist does not think that sin is a problem and does not think you need to be saved. So right there, you've got a, you know, you can't have a Christian worldview. if you think you don't need salvation from sins, or if you don't think Jesus died for sins. So right away, you've got a basic conflict. But that is, and he's very open about being a perennialist. I mean, he's open about his views. And this is what is shocking, is that it's not hard to find out what the man believes. at all. And yet I've been told by people, when I say what he believes, I've been told, oh, no, he doesn't believe that or, you know, no, that's not what he thinks. And he's not, you know, he's a Christian or something. And I'm like, look, just spend five minutes on his blog. You know, look up the word atonement on his blog and see what he says. you know, or look up the word sin and see what he says, or the word perennial. He has a lot. He has a lot out there. Or just go to YouTube and listen to a few of his talks. It's very easy to find material from Richard Rohr. He is everywhere. And he's quite the influence So, and I've had, I've had Christians tell me that the Enneagram did lead them to war, either because someone recommended war, or they came across his name when they were doing readings on the Enneagram. or websites, and they were like, oh, this Richard Warguy, he's the expert. I'm going to look and see what he says. And they actually get pulled into his teachings because he can sound Christian. In some cases, if you don't look deep enough, he sounds on the surface like he's okay. But the thing is, he has different definitions for the words he uses. Yeah, yeah, that's that's so important because I mean that's what progressive, quote unquote, we use quotations for this progressive Christians do what you just said is they have that you might use the same language but they have different, different meanings like hey, look over here, I'm saying the same thing as you, but over here, I don't mean the same thing at all. It's like, there's nothing to see. I'm like, wait a minute, that's deception. We're talking about deception here. That's really what it has to do with is don't look over here because my hand isn't really closed. I don't really have my hand closed and I don't really have anything in my hand, but people might think I do kind of thing. And it's like, Wait a minute. Not only is that wrong, but God doesn't do that to us. He clearly discloses Himself in His word. And so that's why we as Christians affirm the result of that in a biblical worldview. That's why Christians are full of integrity, people of integrity. We don't lie, we don't cheat, and we don't steal. Why? Because when God sees and God knows us and he sees us, sees through. And so if we lie and cheat, to your point just now, if we lie and cheat and steal, we have to repent and turn to Christ and he will pardon us and forgive us. And so that what you're saying is so important. And I hope Christians are picking up on that because, you know, we're not deceived. Like I said earlier, we have the Holy Spirit and he dwells us at the moment of conversion. And He teaches us, He grounds us in the truth, He points us to Jesus, He's sending us out on mission. So, if we're sending, in our witness, if we're sending a message that, and a lot of people are, that this is acceptable, that this is okay, and we somehow encourage other people who follow us, or whatever, as we follow Christ, then we're sending the wrong message. We're actually endangering our witness. And that's a very serious matter. I would encourage Christians to go and read the New Testament and notice the linkage between our character and our witness. And it's always, it's not a both, it's not an either or, it's a both and, character and then our witness. So, actually, I would say that you should go back and go back to the basics. If you think that the Enneagram is not like what Marsha is saying, you think that the Enneagram is unimportant today and that we shouldn't be concerned about it, maybe you're a pastor listening. Actually, you need to go back to the New Testament, is what I'm going to say, and consider your Christian character and how you should be formed by the Bible and how that, because of that, then you can actually be a witness for Christ. You know, and of course, we could talk about I'm sure that a lot of this has to do with biblical illiteracy in our day. I wrote a book on that. I don't know if you knew that, but a lot of it, I think a lot of this has to do with just how biblically illiterate we are and how we even say to people, Oh, well, if I read the Bible, I'm of somehow legalists. And I've been telling people, I'm like, If encouraging people to read the Bible is legalism, then sign me up for that legalism. I'll be on that legalism train all day. Just call me a legalist. I'm fine with that, because that's not legalism. What we're talking about is so... so important. I know you recently, we mentioned that conversation that you had with Justin on Unbelievable, and I know pastors are, you know, they're getting sucked up in this trend. What would you say to pastors about it? Yeah, that is really hard to witness. You know, I actually had one pastor tell me after I sent him some information, because he was starting a series, a sermon series on the Enneagram, And he just kind of he responded to me very politely, but he said he was going to use it as a tool to bring people to the church. And, you know, I mean, when when a pastor says that, you almost don't know what to say, except you want to say, have you read the Bible lately? Because, you know, the gospel is what the pastors are told to preach, the gospel in season, out of season. We're told that the gospel is the power into salvation in Romans 1. um either verse 16 or 17 i always forget which one and it's like we're 16 thank you and it's like he's going to use the enneagram to bring people well you know you could offer free you know alcohol drinks that would probably get a lot of people to come to the church or something, you know, or a funny movie, you know, a free funny movie or something, you know, that isn't, and especially I think actually offering a funny movie might be better because the problem with offering the Enneagram is that you're offering something that's false and that has a false spirituality. And it might get people there, but God is not going to bless that way of attracting people. That's not going to be fruit. In other words, it's not going to be fruitful because it's not going to, it's not going to bring fruit in from the Holy Spirit or from the Lord or from God's word. It may be bring fruit, but it's going to be rotten fruit. So, you know, you're already starting off on the wrong foot there. But yeah, what I yeah, this I actually was kind of in this. It's not really a formal debate, but people see it as a debate on Justin Brealey show Unbelievable. So I was sort of in a semi debate with this pastor who's started this even he started this organization called for pastor theologians. because he believes that pastors should be good theologians, which I can get behind that. I think that's great. The problem is that you would think somebody like that would be more discerning. I felt like he didn't really have all the information on the Enneagram before he jumped on board with it. But he's not just jumped on board with it. He's written this book that IVP, again, here we see IVP has done quite a few books on the Enneagram. um is promoting and of course he's promoting it um and I you know I don't know what to say to pastors I feel what I have said a few times is shouldn't we care about the truth and the facts as Christians and not just a pragmatic view which seems to be the view of a lot of pastors well it worked for me and it helped me and my wife with our marriage or helped me understand my children. And I tried to point out on that show that something that can seem to help you doesn't mean it's valid because you get drawn into it and you're very subjective. You're not unbiased, you're very biased. And I pointed out this is what happens with astrology because as an astrologer, I was doing very detailed birth charts for people. based on their birth time and birthplace. And I would do, you know, there were times, there was a period there where I was doing two hour chart readings. That got to be a little too much and I cut back to an hour and a half. And then I cut back to an hour because it was, it was really just too much to do an hour and a half. But in that hour, I would pack in all this information about their childhood, their relationship with their parents, uh they're the kind of relationships they have with you know the opposite sex or in their marriage um their goals their talent you know their spiritual path i would i would just have all this information for them from the chart and they would be resonating with it they would be saying oh wow that's so true how do you know that i can't believe you can see that in the chart and this all comes from a um something that psychologists call the Barnum effect or the Forer effect. There's other things we tend to want to identify with patterns. We hear something and we think, oh yeah, that's like me because it's so general. It's like a lot of people. And then we start accepting what's being said without really sometimes thinking about it. We just accept it on a surface level. And so I try to point out that astrology, if we're going to go, if the standard is going to be, it works for me, or it was really seemed to be true about me, if that's going to be the standard, then you have to accept astrology because you're gonna find millions of people who say that. astrology you know it's i mean really you're a lot more people than you're fine with enneagram because astrology is more widespread and has been around longer so i know from the reactions to astrology including from myself you know i had my birth chart And I knew it, of course, by heart. I interpreted and filtered events through it. I had my son's birth chart. I looked at him the way that, you know, I used his chart to quote unquote understand him. And I felt like it really helped me understand him. Well, all of that was false. You know, yeah, there were probably little bits of truth in there, but it was all false. It's not something that anybody should use to understand themselves or other people. And the Enneagram is just as false and invalid as astrology. And I've heard some people give it the nickname of the Christian Zodiac or Christian astrology. And I think that's really insightful. I think that's a good way to put the enneagram. It is kind of like the zodiac for Christians. Yeah, I think that's really good. And what you said at the beginning of the answer stands out to me about pragmatism because It's such a prevalent issue today and, you know, it's like, let's care more. It makes me think, oh, well, what we care about more in the church today, what pastors and ministry leaders care about, and I'm a ministry leader myself, what they care about and how we're taught in seminary is more to care more about our witness than our character and that's a big problem because like you just like you just said well not always but this more like a lot of summaries just focus more on programs and do that kind of thing so what they're caring about is by teaching people in ministry, going to be in ministry is about their witness. And what you just said is so important because it's not just about our witness. As I was saying earlier, it's about our character and our witness. Our character fuels our witness, and that's where we have to go back to. And I think it's tragic, absolutely tragic that that any pastor would ever promote a pragmatic view of ministry. And this is really the next kind of, I think, I'm just going to say it this way, I was thinking as you were talking, the Enneagram is like the next pragmatic approach to ministry. Just funnel people into this little thing and they'll be helped and whatever. And what we're saying is actually, it denies the biblical worldview. Now, can tools be that we need to be clear here. Tools can be an important thing to help somebody grow, but the tool itself has to be biblical. It has to be biblically grounded, because otherwise, you know, they're never going to grow. They're going to grow away from God instead of to God. And any pastor, the work of a pastor, Ephesians 4.15 tells us, is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And they're supposed to equip people to write 2 Timothy 2 15 tells us to rightly handle the Word of God. So, any pastor that is teaching somebody that is taking them away from what is biblical is not equipping them. They're failing in their task. Now, we know in the Old Testament that some of the strongest words that God had to say was for shepherds who led people away from God. And I hope that, I hope that, and I say it that way, and I'm not going to pronounce any judgment on pastors, but if that's you and you're thinking that the Enneagram is somehow a viable device, then you need to go back and you need to read your Bible, you need to study this issue, and pick up this great book, Richard Rohr and the Enneagram Secret, You need to listen to this episode. You know, I'm sure Marsha would field questions. I know Dawn would as well. I know they've talked about it at Midwestern Outreach and, you know, do some study. You know, discernment is the Christian, it's not an option. It's something that we're supposed to be engaged in and pastors and ministry leaders should lead the way in that. And so if you can't lead the way in that, then maybe it's time, I would say, to step aside. And if you're not willing to do that, then you should step aside. You should be honest and have enough integrity to step aside. And I don't enjoy saying that because most of my friends and a lot of our listeners, those who watch these things, these programs, they are pastors. And so I never want to be discouraging to a pastor and our audience definitely knows that. But I also want to be realistic. If you're not willing to do your job, there's so many people that are leading people away from God already and we don't need any more people. And this issue is only one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode just for everybody watching or listening. It's because I'm concerned that this is becoming just like the critical race theory. Don said that actually. Don, when I was talking with Don, he said, you know, this is kind of like a critical race theory in the Enneagram. It's just going to continue to be an issue. And so the more I've thought about that since our conversation, he and I talked about it, I'm just like, this is a big issue. And pragmatism, it kills. It doesn't help. Now, like I said, having tools that are biblically grounded and help people to grow, you know, like good Christian books and those things that are scripturally based, that's a good tool to give to somebody. But tools that are not biblical and unhelpful and deny a biblical worldview, those are the kind of things that we should mark and avoid, because that's what scripture tells us. And so, it's, it's just really sad how, how we're moving in more of a, more towards a pragmatic approach to ministry, and I'm very concerned about. So, how should, how should we, you know, we're talking about speaking and those kinds of things about Christ and the gospel and the Bible, how should Christians speak to this issue of the Enneagram and its growing influence? Yes, I think as people become aware of it, and some people who have been using the Enneagram and actually liked it or thought it was helpful when they've received the information. or came across it, did reject it. They admitted they had been deceived. They admitted that they didn't know some of these facts about it. They were told wrongly. They were given the false narrative. And the problem is people will trust their pastor. So if their pastor says, hey, read this book, we're gonna use this tool, it's gonna be helpful. they're gonna tend to trust that the pastor has vetted it and that it's okay, because they're not gonna think their pastor's gonna introduce something that's false. So a lot of people were deceived that way. And once they've seen or realized it wasn't true, they actually have admitted, I was wrong. And then they have tried to tell other people that they know that are involved. So I think that it's really hard to do sometimes to be bold and speak out on something that you know other people like if you know other people like this and have been deceived by it it's very hard to say look these are the facts you don't have the facts or this is what you're doing is you're using a tool that's invalid and that, you know, has a worldview against the biblical worldview. It's hard to do that because a lot of people are going to either get angry, they're going to reject what you say, you know, they may even call you names, or they may even just end the relationship. But I think that, you know, becoming a Christian, part of becoming a Christian and taking a stand. And I think we're seeing this more and more in this world. is that you do have to speak the truth when you have the truth and you can't worry about the consequences. I don't mean you need to be reckless about it and you need to speak the truth in love, but you do need to speak out. And I understand, I know how hard that is. And a lot of people admit that it's very hard for me to do that. I'm afraid, I don't know what my friends will say, but they have gone ahead anyway. And what I've encouraged these people to do is, you know, when you're speaking the truth, you are you are blessed by God, you know, and by blessed, I don't mean, you know, you're suddenly going to give you a million dollars. Or, you know, or a new house or something or a new car, you're spiritually blessed. And God could because God is with you when you're speaking the truth and God will strengthen you. So you look to him for the strength and they help from the Holy Spirit when you're doing it. You don't do it in your own flesh. You know, you have to do it in the Holy Spirit. But it's not an easy thing to do. But I do, you know, I say that when you do this, you do get a spiritual blessing. You become more and it will help you become bold in other situations, which may be even worse in dealing with. Because I have felt all along that the Enneagram is not only a deception in the church, but it may be paving the way for more deceptions. because if people are going to fall for this, they'll fall for other things that are going to come along, whatever those may be. And so as many peoples we can get to see the truth, the better, you know, God has his reason for letting this happen. God, you know, God, obviously knows what's going on. And he's known that this would happen from the beginning. And he has his purposes in it. I do see one purpose being that we're seeing who is really willing to stick to God's word as authoritative and who isn't when they get the facts. When they get the facts, what do they do with the facts? That exposes people who don't stick with God's word. And in a way, I guess, you know, sad, but it's a good thing because we need to become aware of that. if there are people in the church who don't really take God's Word as authoritative, we need to really know that because, you know, you're not, I feel like, well, if you're in the church and you don't see God's Word as authoritative, what are you using as your authority? You know, if it's not God's Word, then you have to be using something else. and you know that needs to be exposed for whatever reasons so in the way god may be using this tool for that may be using the enneagram for that i don't know but i have speculated on that yeah that's that's really really really good you know we we are facing Challenges on every side. Yes. And what Jesus said is, we know when we talk about the hard things hard, and this is a hard thing. When Jesus gave hard words to count the cost and follow them. I mean people just upped and left, you know, he did. The Puritans called this dividing the audience between those who belong to Him and those who didn't. And the people who didn't belong, they just stopped following Him. You know, you'd see massive crowds following Jesus, and then the crowds go away because they don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear the hard words. That's true. And what did Peter say in John 6? In the middle of this, you have the words of eternal life. There's nobody else, as we've said, that has the words of eternal life than Jesus, you know. He is the only one who can give us not only the hard words, but the remedy, the solution to those hard words in Himself. And so, you know, if you, you know, say you're a Christian and you minimize the hard words and the sayings of Jesus or any part of scripture, then you might as well just rip out that part of the Bible. you know, and that's really, really bad, you know. We have not only problems that you're touching on as a sufficiency of scripture, we have big problems with the sufficiency of scripture and that's what pragmatism does. It minimizes and undercuts the sufficiency of scripture for every area of life and ministry, you know, like that's why I was talking about how the pastors are to equip the saints for the work of ministry and to rightly handle the word of God. And if they're not, you know, and that's true for all of us, whether we're writing an article or we're doing a podcast or doing a video, we should never undermine the Bible. Um, what you're saying is so important. I hope that we're, we're really listening to your, to that counsel that you gave because it's, it's so true. And it doesn't even just apply to the inner ground applies. If we just want to give our opinion and, and a pine and, never go back to the Bible and consider it our authoritative standard for our faith and our practice. It's binding on our lives. It's, you know, it's a tough thing, but when we go back to it, it's like, you have to go back to the Bible, go back to the Bible. That's why the Bereans were commended, right? They were commended, Acts tells us, because they searched the scriptures. They didn't search the latest fascinating book or Richard Rohr or whoever the heck it is, they searched the scriptures, you know, they read, maybe read those challenging books or books or whatever that were coming out, but then they searched the scriptures and they were discerning, they analyzed it from a biblical worldview so that they would be grounded in Scripture, and that's where we go back to Scripture. Whatever your theological persuasion is or whatever, you know, we're personally in a Reformed ministry, but that doesn't really matter. Go back to the Scriptures. Be shaped by the Scriptures, you know, and you'll see that, you'll find that, you know, your life is increasingly, you know, grounded in God's Word, and you'll start to think, and in biblical categories, in a biblical way, and that's so important. And one other thing I wanted to hit on, because you mentioned the fear of, you know, the fear of man, the fear of God, you know, the more, to be bold, that means that we take God seriously, we take Him at His word, and that should help us to kill the fear of man. right right because you know i know that it's it's hard to speak up uh it's hard to know you know sometimes oh is this really an issue that i really want to talk about Is that really something where I want to go? You know, what we're saying is, yeah, you should read, you should study, you should be intelligent, you should use your mind and love God with your mind. But then after you're done studying, after you understand it, you got to speak up. You got to say something. You got to contend for the faith once for all. Because this is one issue that people are being deceived and it's our responsibility to speak up in love and to call it out so that people won't be deceived. So go ahead. No, I agree with you. I was, I was just recently going over the passage where Jesus says, you know, you count the cost, you have to carry your, if you want to follow me, you have to carry the cross. And I, you know, that's such a common phrase that you hear quoted and people say it and often misuse it or misapply it. And this time I really, you know, whatever I was reading the commentary on it or something really hit me that what does that mean to carry the cross? That's what Jesus did going to his crucifixion. Yeah, it means that you take a stand where you are willing to die for christ jesus said if you're going to follow me You know, it can't be this halfway. You have to be willing to even die for me And and we do know of course throughout history christians have done that they have had to die Now you as far as I know standing up and speaking the truth on the enneagram is not going to lead to your death You know, you're not, you're not, Christ isn't asking you speak up on the enneagram and then you're going to die. But if you're willing to really, if you really understand that and you see that, yes, I have to be willing even to die. Then speaking up on the Enneagram is not, you know, should not be as as awful as if you're somewhere in a prison and you know that you're going to be taken out and shot, you know, for or killed or executed, which, of course, as we know, happens in some countries. So even though it's hard to be bold and speak out, God isn't calling you yet to to have to die, you know, at least if you're in this country. Um, and you know, I, I think two of, you know, the book of Hebrews written to the Jewish believers who were wanting to avoid persecution by going back to the temple. And there's the verse in there that says you haven't suffered yet to the point where you've had to lose your blood. You know, you're, you're still okay. You just need to take a stand. You're not even having to, you know, maybe face being killed. Yeah. Persecution. Yes. So God wants us to really be willing to take a stand for the truth unto death. And if it's not unto death, which in most cases it isn't for people in this country, then what excuse do we have for not speaking up? And like, again, I sympathize with people who, you know, have a hard time. Some people are very quiet and they don't even express their opinions a lot, you know. So for them to suddenly say something to their friends that they know are into this Enneagram, like, hey guys, you know, I'm not doing this anymore. Because I found out the the facts on it here. Here's here's the here's the truth. That's hard But you know, it's not god never said it would be easy to be a christian the bible and bible actually shows It's not first peters written To christians be prepared be prepared to to suffer um, and certainly a lot of christians in the early church suffered horrific things that we are not facing here. You know, verbal persecution or maybe people mistreating you in some way at your job or something is bad, but we're not being thrown to the lions. So, you know, think about the Christians that had to go through that. You're right. Well said. Marsha, where can people go to find out more about your work online, either on social media or otherwise? Oh, thanks for asking. I do have a website, christiananswersforthenewage.org, and I have on the articles page, which is what most people might want to know about, I have a whole bunch of articles. I don't even know how many. I haven't ever counted them. And I keep adding to them every year. So there's articles on New Age and occult topics. There's articles on New Age books, New Age people. I try to put as much there as I humanly can. And the other way is I have a Facebook page for my ministry called Christian Answers for the New Age. So people who want to follow the page can go there. And now some people have told me their phone doesn't offer the option for follow. I mean, I don't know. That's, I guess, you know, maybe that's the case. And so they can like the page. but at least on the computer or my laptop you can you have the option to follow. because then you're more likely to see the posts. But my ministry page, I keep it, I don't have personal stuff there. I have posts on the New Age and occult topics. I post things like, you know, a podcast interview or whatever, I'll post that there. And it's mainly to inform people. It's supposed to be an informative page as well as a page for people in the New Age. So I do have people in the new age who come there and will comment, sometimes will challenge me, well, often they will challenge. They will disagree. That's fine. I'm glad that they're there. So the page is not just for Christians. It is certainly, hopefully, beneficial for Christians and informative, but it is also for non-Christians. So I have to point that out from time to time, because sometimes Christians are surprised when a non-Christian comes in and comments. And they're kind of like, what are you doing here? And I have to say, no, it's fine. It's OK. The non-Christian can be here if they're going to be civil. you know, they can say what they can have their piece, and then I can respond and maybe have a dialogue with them. Because I am, I am a missionary. So part of my, my ministry is reaching out to people in the new age. And a lot of that is done on Facebook. Wonderful, wonderful. Well, there's a lot that we could talk about about this topic. I know we could keep going on and on and expand on any number of these things today. But just as we wrap up, do you have a few takeaways? Well, yes. I appreciate you having me on again. Thank you. I encourage people to seek information. Unfortunately, you can't just trust other people because they're sometimes trusting other people or, you know, they're trusting the book publishers and they think, well, these book publishers wouldn't publish this book on this, you know, without investigating, but unfortunately that's not the case. So we're accountable for our own choices and actions. even if somebody's misleading us, we're still accountable. So I really urge each Christian to really get grounded in God's word, you know, to be discerning and apply it to things. When you see something new, like the Enneagram suddenly seemed to come from nowhere, you know, most people were like, what, what's that? I never heard of it. And it suddenly becomes popular. That's usually a red flag, because if it seems to come from nowhere, it's probably came from a bad place. That's not a part of historic Christianity. So that is a red flag in itself. So learn to recognize that new things. So this is a new take on something. This is really what the Gospels are about. It's not like what we thought. Whenever you get this new twist on everything, that's a red flag. And the Enneagram was like that too. Yeah, be right in the word, be discerning, search for yourself, search out the facts and realize that you're accountable. Guys, Marcia, thank you so much for your time today. I've enjoyed it, guys. I encourage you to pick up this book, Richard Rohr and the Enneagram Secrets. Here it is again. Marcia, thank you so much for your ministry and all that you're doing to help Christians and non-Christians understand the truth and to, you know, obviously for non-Christians to know Christ and to come to him and for Christians to be discipled and learn about Ruts really happening on these matters. It's vital what you're doing. So thank you. And so I appreciate the way you engage on this topic in this interview. It's definitely commendable. So keep up the good work. Well, praise the Lord. Thank you so much, Dave. Thanks. You're welcome. Thank you for listening to the Equipping You in Grace podcast. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe, rate us on the app, and share this with your friends and family on social media. If you want to find us on social media, you can find us on Twitter at Servants of Grace, on Instagram at Servants of Grace, or by searching at Servants of Grace on Facebook. You can also find this episode and many others like it on the front page of our website, servantsofgrace.org.